Yahoo Finance
Fresh fruit is one of the most constant features of an American grocery store.
Apples, pears, and cherries may remain on shelves long after harvest season ends, but the workforce behind them often follows a far less stable calendar.
Agriculture depends heavily on workers hired to pick, pack, and move crops.
But they are released once that work is done.
For consumers, the product can feel permanent, but for the farmworkers, the job often is not.
That tension is playing out again in Washington, one of the country's most important fruit-growing regions.
Borton & Sons, a Washington fruit grower and packer, plans to lay off 928 farmworkers in November as this year's harvest winds down, according to aWorker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN)reviewed by TheStreet.
The affected employees are general farm laborers working under the federal H-2A program.
The program allows agricultural businesses to hire foreign workers for temporary or seasonal jobs when there are not enough U.S.
Borton said the layoffs will begin on Nov.
15 across operations in Yakima, Zillah, Pasco, Burbank, Prescott, Soap Lake, Othello, and Mesa.
Seasonal layoffs after harvest are common in agriculture, and Borton acknowledged as much in its filing.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
Comments
Post a Comment